- Sister Chen MeiLi: finding family history and writing family stories
- Elder Davis: show how westerners do genealogy and what we can learn from it
- Sister Davis and Sister Chen LiXue: updates on family tree
- Q/A and other
1. Sister Chen MeiLi's presentation was very emotional. In her research for this presentation, she focused on her maternal grandfather, Lin 林禮涵. She knew he was a musician, but what she found was truly amazing. Her sister and brother told her that Grandfather Lin was a famous pianist, songwriter and composer. She googled her grandfather and found out he was the first folk song writer of Taiwan. He married a famous singer and she made his songs so popular that when MeiLi played a couple of the songs for us, everyone started singing along. It was so beautiful. MeiLi remembered her grandfather teaching her piano, but when she started singing, he stopped teaching her because MeiLi's mother didn't want her daughter to become a singer. Society had stigma about women singers and she didn't want her daughter to go through that. MeiLi is an accomplished pianist, but she often wondered what would have become of her if she had become a singer.
Here is what I found on the wiki about her grandfather: http://taiwanpedia.culture.tw/web/content?ID=28805
Some of songs are:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIv2CzSYH-o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnfsxAUc34c
2. Elder Davis took us to some websites where westerners can go for resources. Wiki is one of them. He also showed everyone a list of urls. (As provided by St. George Family History Center, Elder Midgely in May 2012)
Vital Records: Usually birth,
marriage and death (BMD) records created by governments. It can also include many other types of
records, such as divorce, adoption, wills, probates, etc. In many areas church records are used as a
substitute for government vital records because government records are a fairly
recent option. They began to be kept over
a wide time span in various parts of the world so you will need to check on the
situation for each locality.
US Vital Records: Some go back
to colonial times but many did not begin until after 1920. Most are not
complete, so if you search and do not find one, it simply may mean that they
may not have been recorded. It is
estimated that until recently 10% or more were not recorded.
Four "W's":
1. Who- be specific!
2. What - birth, marriage, death, etc. (What are you looking
for?)
3. Where - geographic location (You need to find out what was available
in that location.)
4. When - approximate date - (You need a date to determine
what records they had in that time frame.)
Sources for answering the three of the
four "W's":
·
Family Search
Research Wiki - https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Main_Page Search
for "vital records"
·
FamilySearch Help
Index - https://help.familysearch.org/help/self-help Then select
"Vital Records Index"
·
Ancestry's Red Book
- Spend some time looking through this. Available in our FHC.
·
Ancestry.com
Family History Wiki - http://www.ancestry.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page This new
Wiki contains all the information from the Red Book above. Search for (state) vital records.
·
The Handy Book
for Genealogists: United States of America - Available in our FHC. Look through
it.
·
FamilySearch
Library Catalog - https://www.familysearch.org/#form=catalog A goldmine
of resources! You need to spend time
exploring this treasure!
·
Google, Yahoo,
Bing and many other search engines
·
There are many
other excellent sites, but this will get you started and the above links with
lead you to others.
3. Mr. Lin, our visitor came about an hour late because he had a hard time finding the church. We introduced him, and he was very happy to share with us the story of his family history connection with the Church. Back in the 1970's, some Church representatives came to his family to film their family history clan book. He was away at the time, but his father told him about it, and he was hooked on genealogy ever since. Since his retirement from the Bank of Taiwan as a branch
The Spirit of Elijah was there with us that night. I have told many people in my presentation that our church started filming, photographing records in Asia some forty or fifty years ago. I have seen many of those records online on familysearch.org now, including my mom's Shi Family Clan Book. But this is the first time I actually met someone whose clan book was filmed 40 years ago in Taiwan.
a At the end of the training, Sister Cai, a dear consultant from ZuoYing Ward came to give me a big hug and to say good-bye. She has met her eternal companion through Singles Conference a few months ago and decided to tie knots and get married. If anyone understands how many faithful, beautiful, smart single sisters (many of them have served missions) we have here in Taiwan, you'd understand why we get so excited when one of them finds an eternal companion. It was a great ending for a very special night. But it didn't end yet...
My brother--in-law, Stan Winters and his son, Dennis, from the US, showed up at church at the end of the meeting. How happy we are to see them. It was after 9 PM, but we were able to find a nice noodle shop for them to have a bite to eat. On our way home to our apartment and to their hotel, I mentioned to the taxi driver that my nephew was having sciatic nerve problems (from driving from Provo to Spokane and then riding in an airplane for 16 hours to Taiwan) and asked if he would stop at a pharmacy for us to get some help. The rest is classic. I'm posting what Stan said about this experience:
Dennis and I went to the chapel to meet Shirley and Elwin. They had a meeting and we met them there at about 9PM. Then we went out to a little noodle place and had dinner. Had a good time. Dennis was having trouble with his back, butt, and legs as they were hurting him. Interesting story: after dinner, we got a taxi and first took Elwin and Shirley to their apartment, and then we took it the rest of the way to our hotel. On the way to Elwin and Shirley's house Dennis was really in pain. Shirley asked the driver where there was a pharmacy so we could buy Salonpas. After Shirley and the driver discussed Dennis' situation, the driver offered to give Dennis a massage. I thought, "no way, you got to be kidding." Dennis felt the same. But Shirley said, "O that would be great!" Dennis and I were both stunned. We told Shirley we were really skeptical and really didn't feel right about it. But she insisted saying, "No, these people really know what they are doing". Hmm. So on our way back to the hotel we talked to the driver and Dennis said he was curious enough to give it a try. So when we arrived at the 5-star hotel, the driver parked his taxi and went up to the room with Dennis and proceeded to massage his legs. Dennis said he felt it had some very good results. We tried to pay the guy but he didn't want anything and offered to teach Dennis later, if he wanted. I would not do that in a million years in New York !!! Cab driver says, " say there, let me come up and massage your legs to make them feel better". Uh Huh - right!Brother Liu LanSheng said in his FB: 會場中我們見到 戴姐妹和好幾個姐妹相擁相泣！大慨有的姐妹要離開高雄？有的是感傷戴姐妹她們快要離開台灣了！更有兩個姐妹相擁相泣是為了友誼，為了愛！
(I saw Sister Davis and several sisters hugging each other in tears at the end of the meeting. They have developed such friendships between them. It would be hard to see them go.)
今夜！今夜！一個靈性的夜晚！ (Tonight, tonight, what a spirtual night!)
That was our special night! We thank our Lord Jesus Christ for His love for all His children!
